There are many surgical procedures where instruments that are being used in surgery may become caked or coated with blood or other body or surgical fluids. In many instances, such instruments may be required for continual use during the surgical procedure, or in any event it may be necessary to clean the instruments prior to sterilization. Examples of instruments that may be required to be cleaned or polished during surgical procedures for continuing use are cautery tips that are used for cauterizing blood vessels so as to stop bleeding, and certain kinds of clamps and forceps.
In the past, particularly during surgical procedures where it has been necessary to use cautery tips, there have been sterilized instrument wipers and sterilized cautery tip polishers provided, as separate items. That is to say, it has been the practice in the past that cautery tip polishers are provided from one source, enclosed in their own sterile pouches, and instrument wipers have been provided--very often from a different source--also in their own sterile pouches. Space on the instrument table or Mayo stand is therefore required for the cautery tip polishers and instrument wipers, and of course there are the concommitant costs of acquiring, stocking and providing separate sterilized polisher products and wiper products.
It has been the usual practice, in the past, that cautery tip polishers have been provided having a metal insert within them, for stiffening the polisher, and whereby the polisher is X-ray detectable. Instrument wipers, on the other hand, are not X-ray detectable unless they have such as a barium sulphate filament secured to them.
Moreover, some instrument polishers have, in the past, provided magnets to catch any particles of metal that may be ground off the cautery tips, but those magnets are not always effective if there is any tackiness due to the presence of drying blood or other substances; and further, they may tend to magnetize the cautery tips which effect may not be desirable in all instances, depending on the circumstances of the use of other life support systems or apparatus that may be being used or may be installed within the body of the patient.
The present invention, on the other hand, provides a combined instrument polisher and wiper that comprises an instrument polisher near one end of the device, so constructed as to be useful for cautery tips, forcep and clamp tips, bi-polar forceps, etc.; and which at the other end of the device, comprises an instrument wiper. An adhesive coating is provided on the lower surface of the combined polisher and wiper, so that it may be secured to the surface of the instrument table or Mayo stand after it has been removed from its sterilization pouch.
By providing a structure according to the present invention, the costs of additional sterilization and sterilization pouches have been substantially eliminated for all surgical procedures where it is necessary to provide both instrument polishers and wipers; and additional space on the instrument table is provided because only one surgical accessory needs to be placed on the table apart from the instrument trays and other requisite apparatus that the surgeon may have ordered to be placed for his use.
Several prior patents of interest have been noted, including HOFF U.S. Pat. No. 2,727,515, dated Dec. 20, 1955. HOFF teaches a surgical wiping pad that comprises a pad or disc of absorbent cotton, to which is secured a finger tab of one or more thicknesses of paper. The HOFF surgical wiping pad is, however, a throw-away pad which is intended primarily for use as a wiper prior to hypodermic injection, without having to touch the wiping surface.
A pad having an abrasive or scouring material at one end and a washing fabric at the other, where the scouring pad is secured to the other fabric, is shown in MIKULSKI U.S. Pat. No. 2,778,044, issued Jan. 22, 1957. That pad is, however, intended as a culinary washing pad for scouring dishes or cooking utensils, and the like.
LINDQUIST ET AL, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,359 issued June 12, 1973, teach a non-slip instrument pad for use by surgeons, where the instrument pad may be positioned over the body of the patient during the surgery for placing instruments thereon. Because the pad is used in close proximity to the patient, it is necessary that it must be specially treated both for purposes of sepsis and so as to reduce electrical resistivity. The pad is not otherwise used as a wiper or cleaner of any sort.
Another culinary scouring pad, in which there is a retained stiffener, is taught in WAGNER U.S. Pat. No. 4,027,352 issued June 7, 1977. That scouring pad is particularly provided for purposes of getting into the relatively sharp corners of baking pans and tins, and the like.
None of the prior art patents, nor any of the proprietary cautery tip polishers that have been provided to hospitals, satisfy the double requirement of a surgical instrument polisher and wiper that may be provided as a unitary entity from a single sterilization pouch, and which can be secured to an instrument table or Mayo stand without the necessity for providing an additional wiper.
Several commercial cautery tip cleaners are CAUTERY CADDY.TM. and a CAUTERY CADDY.TM. pad sold by Instranetics Inc., and TIPOLISHER.TM. sold by Devon Industries. Commercial instrument wipers include TIPWIPE.TM. sold by Devon Industries, and wipers sold by the Codman & Shurtleff division of Johnson & Johnson.